


The Work Can Wait

by inasentimentalmood



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 11:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7359898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inasentimentalmood/pseuds/inasentimentalmood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan chooses to keep something private from Sherlock that's deeply painful and personal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Work Can Wait

**Author's Note:**

> Watson's Woes Prompt #1: Have Watson choose to hide something bad from Holmes, or to minimize it, for whatever reason; it may or may not end well.

He heard the stairs creaking with each step of her descent. “Oh good, I was just revisiting our theory in regards to suspect number three, Gretchen Flatley.” The usual collage of mug shots, crime scene photos and other pertinent data hung above the fireplace; stacks of files were piled on the work table. “It may require some negotiations with Everyone, but I am highly certain we can disprove her alibi.” When her steps continued into the foyer, he decided to go to her rather than waiting for her to come to him.

He carried the open file as he approached. “Her digital footprint must have been forged over the course of—” It was only in looking up that he noticed her haste to put on her jacket, fiddling with her keys and stowing her phone. “Going out?” he asked with an edge to his voice. It was tradition for them to work together through the night until they cracked the case.

“Yeah,” was her terse response as she quickly exited the brownstone, nearly slamming the door behind her.

“I shall apprise you of developments in the case via text, then!” he called out. He took quickly to his phone to then compose a message to her, “Lts nt rpt rcnt evts. If ths a Kurtz sitn pls advs.” The last time she hid something from him, three people wound up dead in a diner.

She had seemed agitated as she left their home, “R u ok?” he added as a courtesy.

“No espionage tonight. Am fine. Back later.”

She typed this quickly from the back of a cab before dialing a new call.

 "Lin? It’s me. I found Dad.”

 --

Since Lin lived closer to the shelter where he’d been found, she got there first. But Joan was the one who knew all the staff, so she waited there, sitting by the front desk and feeling out of place in her overcoat and designer heels.

It turned out he had been mistakenly identified as using, and had been transported by emergency services to a sobering center, a part of the city’s proactive efforts at “harm reduction” though the shelter staff knew all too well it was more or less a calculated measure to keep poor people out of sight. When the sobering center realized the mistake, they referred him to this shelter, which had on-site mental health professionals.

He was mumbling to himself in a mix of English and Mandarin when they gingerly entered the room, Joan and Lin. Joan tried her best not to cry on sight, but mistiness clouded her eyes nonetheless. Before she could speak, Lin had rushed past her, was on her knees in front of their father, calling him _b_ _àba_ , pleading with him to recognize her, taking his hands in hers. “Lin, no,” was all Joan could manage to get out; she knew Lin was just going to end up hurt, like she had.

His disengagement stung. He would quickly look at Lin, look at Joan, then resume his insistent mumbling. He kept mumbling and mumbling, insisting that there was a man that was going to come and kill him, that he was going to die tonight. An agonized moan followed upon this revelation, and he would repeat the process all over again, _ad infinitum_. This was the same delusion he had fixated upon the last time Joan had seen him years ago.

“ _We need to leave now,_ ” he begged, eyeing the counselor who couldn’t understand what he was saying. “ _Now! He’s going to get in!_ ”

Joan furrowed her brow and signaled to the counselor for an aside. They spoke in whispers out in the hallway.

“He refuses to take his meds, Joan. We could have him involuntarily committed for a week in the psych ward but—”

“You can’t hold him indefinitely. I know.” Joan pursed her lips. She had tried taking her father in before—an attempt to keep him safe and help him get better—back when she had a condo in Chelsea, but that had been a deeply painful failure. “Just hold him for tonight; I’ll be back tomorrow.” She would figure something out. She always did.

\-- 

Sherlock had left 15 messages for her while she was with her dad. She deleted the notification without reading them.

When she got back to the brownstone he was in nearly the same position as when she had left him. She could tell he was about to launch into a lengthy verbal summary of his night’s progress but she cut him off before he could.

“I need to take a week of vacation.”

“Paid or unpaid, doesn’t matter,” she added as she made her way to her bedroom, leaving him blinking.

It was only in the privacy of her bed, in the dark, that she allowed a release of her emotions. Even then, though a steady stream of tears escaped her eyes onto her increasingly damp pillow, there was no wailing, no hyperventilating or heaving. _Tough times don’t last. Tough people do._

The next morning a tray of breakfast had been left at her door, along with Clyde, chewing on the stems of a small bouquet of flowers. “Hey buddy,” she cooed to him while picking him up and raising him to her eye level. “I’m seeing my dad today.”


End file.
